


Better Left Unsaid

by inksprout



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU, DCU (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Slow Burn, Tim Drake's Missing Spleen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-12 10:55:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29383806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inksprout/pseuds/inksprout
Summary: [Tacenda; Things better left unsaid; matters to be passed over in silence].“Jason,” Tim eventually ventured, fiddling with the uneven bumps of the ceramic he held. He doesn’t really know when this became normal for them, Jason bringing him coffee and making them breakfast, Tim sitting in his breakfast nook in one safehouse or the other. Tim, making Jason tea because he was awake first for a change (or had yet to sleep at all).Jason, bringing Tim back to his personal, real house after Tim stumbled blindly through a drunken night.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Tim Drake & Dick Grayson, Tim Drake & Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Tim Drake & Jason Todd, Tim Drake/Jason Todd
Comments: 21
Kudos: 99





	Better Left Unsaid

**Author's Note:**

> Warning of Graphic Depictions of Violence in relation to injury description.

“Well, good morning, sunshine!”

Tim groaned miserably, turning is head into the soft plume of pillows around his head. His _head_ , his poor, pounding head. Besides him the soft clunk of a mug onto wood caught his attention enough to raise a withering look upon Jason, standing beside him and looking all the world like a perky, functioning adult, smiling down at Tim with a hand on one hip. At the very least he contained his laughter at Tim’s expense. “You take your coffee black, if I remember right?” Tim gave a small nod, forcing himself upright with a deep suck of air that he blew out in a huff, navigating the tangles of blankets around his legs to pluck the mug off the table.

As he sat, nose over the top of his steaming coffee to inhale the deep roasted smell of the brew, Tim took the time to look around the room he found himself struggling awake in. Light already leaked in warm streams through the thin cotton of the curtains, curling around old wooden fixtures, shelves lined and piled with books of all sorts and scrap paper bookmarks bent above the pages. He followed the rows, committing some of the titles to memory as he began to glance over the rest of the décor.

“Is this your place?” Tim asked into his coffee with a quirk to his eyebrows, eyes roaming over the details of the room as he watched Jason shift his weight in his peripheral.

“Home sweet home,” Jason said blandly, following Tim’s observation of his bedroom with his own eyes and apparently finding nothing too interesting about it.

“It’s…” Tim started, eyes landing on a stained glass lamp atop a small round table in the corner. “Nice.”

“Yeah, well, someone has to have good taste in this family,” Jason laughed, meeting Tim’s gaze as he whipped his head back around to level Jason with an unimpressed look.

Tim huffed, shifting to bring the mug back to rest the heat against his chest. He closed his eyes against the sensation and felt it ease some of the lingering nausea from his gut. “Sorry, Jay, some of us have day jobs. I can’t spend all week pinning my favourite _boho-chic_ Instagram posts,” he snarked. He brought the mug to his lips finally, jolting in alarm when Jason’s hand reached out suddenly to hold the underside in a move to take the proffered coffee away, the mature adults that they were. “ _Mm--!_ ” Tim cried, gulping his mouthful and twisting away and out of Jason’s reach. “Fine! You have good taste, now go away.”

Jason hummed, preening above him with a smug smile. “That’s what I thought.” He swivelled to the doorway, walking in absolutely no hurry as he left Tim to make for the kitchen down the hall, calling out to the other behind him in the small expanse of the brown-stone Jason seemed to occupy as, what Tim would hedge a guess if the massive amount of books were any clue, his permanent digs. “I thought you’d want to sleep in a bit, how’s the hangover treating you?” Although the question showed some kindness the ensuing clang of pots and pans derailed Tim from feeling too much appreciation for Jason’s apparent sympathy of the potential for a blinding headache.

“I didn’t get that drunk,” Tim called back, sliding out from under the remaining mess of bedsheets and fetching his jeans from the sloppy pile his belongings remained in from the night before. The bark of laughter he received back from the kitchen had Tim scowling, shuffling down the hall and eyeing all the unremarkable keepsakes dotting the walls and surfaces that made this place Jason’s. 

As he rounded the corner to lean on the doorjamb Jason turned, an unlit cigarette hanging between his lips and a kitchen knife in hand that he waved accusingly towards Tim where he hovered. “Do you even remember me bringing you back here?” he laughed, a grin splitting his face with the inevitable answer sitting between them. Tim took a moment to stare back at him, holding the frown as he sipped defiantly.

“No,” Tim finally admitted.

“ _Not that drunk_ ,” Jason snorted, turning back to the board of half chopped mushrooms and tomatoes on the counter in front of him. He allowed Tim to sulk behind him, the rhythmic clacking of the knife against the wood filling the kitchen and a pan on the hob beginning to crackle with hot oil. “It’s a miracle you aren’t slumped against the toilet, the blessings of being a teenager I suppose.” Tim hummed his acquiescence, back to his cataloguing of Jason’s possessions.

“I’m 21,” he corrected idly to which Jason hummed, clearly unimpressed with the information he no doubt was in fact privy to, despite his teasing. Tim crossed his legs at the ankle, bending over his clutched coffee to peer down the hall from his spot, through to another doorway into what appeared to be the living room. “You slept out here?”

Jason tossed handfuls of vegetables into the hot pan before he turned to Tim, eyebrow raised in question before he looked past him at the peeking arm of his couch. “Well, yeah.” He tossed the pan gently, leaning over to grab an egg from the carton and raising his voice over the hissing pan. “Where the fuck else was I gunna crash?”

Tim nodded slowly, tapping his index nail against the ceramic mug as guilt curled strangely in his gut. He stayed quiet for a few beats, watching past the elder’s back as he cracked a couple of eggs expertly into the pan and tossed the shell aside. “Sorry.”

“What?” Jason said, throwing an incredulous look over his shoulder at Tim where he remained in the doorway.

“I’m sorry,” Tim said, bolder this time even while looking down into the well of his mug and sloshing it in small circles like it was the most interesting thing in the world. “For last night—for—you know,” he looked up, jerking his head to the sofa behind him. “That. And… Last night,” Tim repeated lamely. Meanwhile Jason looked at him like he had grown a second head, holding the pan aloft above the flame on the hob.

“You’re… Sorry? For what exactly, getting a little wasted on your birthday? C’mon, Babybird, if you want someone to apologise make Dick do it, he was the one practically pouring drinks down your throat.”

Well, that was one way to put it for sure. What Tim does remember before things get a bit spacy and vague in his memories of the night before is that Dick was a horrible instigator. The celebration had mostly been driven by Dick, loose ruled drinking games making way for off-menu cocktails and dancing and— oh… _the dancing_. Tim grimaced at the thought of what the three of them must have looked like acting like college kids at the very nice bar the name _‘Wayne’_ gets you access to.

Tim sighed resolutely, leaning his cheek against the doorframe and looking up at the ceiling. “You know how he gets when he gets to be ‘ _big bro extraordinaire, Dick Grayson’_ ,” he groused, tapping the mug again but stopping quickly when Jason threw him a look over his shoulder.

“Yeah, _I do_ , that’s why I’m saying you shouldn’t feel bad for last night,” Jason said, more to the cooker than to Tim who pouted and trailed over to the small kitchen table by the window.

“Speaking of,” Tim started with a sudden interest. “Where is Dick?”

Jason huffed, long and loud as he pulled a couple of dishes off a shelf and carefully plated up the eggs and veg he had concocted for breakfast. “You know how he gets,” Jay parroted with thinly veiled disdain for their brother and his antics. “He disappeared some point between telling me he was going to the bathroom and you getting the life story of the cloakroom attendant.” Tim snorted, cradling his head in his hands and grumbling something to himself. “I got a text on our way out, he went to meet a friend or something,” Jason says as he turns, flourishing the plates onto the table and dropping into the seat opposite.

Tim looked up at that with an amused tilt to his mouth. “I’m sure he did,” he murmured suggestively, picking his fork up to poke at the breakfast before him when the silverware was met with a sharp tap of Jason’s own fork.

“Don’t fuck with your food,” Jason said around his own mouthful. Tim surrendered easily, tucking in at a much slower pace but mostly wrapping himself around the remainder of his hot drink.

They sat like that a while, silence between them except chewing and the clanking of silverware, but Tim couldn’t help but feel like something awkward was charged in the air, an elephant in the room that Tim wasn’t sure he should bring attention to. He looked away from the window he had been gazing out of and instead turned his head to watch Jason, who idly read through the morning paper while he ate, cigarette tucked behind his ear for later. If he noticed Tim staring he said nothing, just leafed through the pages and updated himself on any important news.

“Jason,” Tim eventually ventured, fiddling with the uneven bumps of the ceramic he held. He doesn’t really know when this became normal for them, Jason bringing him coffee and making them breakfast, Tim sitting in his breakfast nook in one safehouse or the other. Tim, making Jason tea because he was awake first for a change (or had yet to sleep at all).

Jason, bringing Tim back to his personal, real house after Tim stumbled blindly through a drunken night.

Tim should ask him when exactly this happened.

Jason looked up, leaving the paper forgotten on the table when he saw Tim struggling to form a thought across from him.

He cowered out.

“Thank you,” Tim said lamely instead, “for looking after me and, y’know, letting me back _here_.”

Tim held still under Jason’s scrutiny for the moment it took him to respond.

“Anytime.”

\--

It turned out Jason really held true to that after all.

Tim groaned miserably, turning his head into Jason’s chest and panting hotly against his collar. “S-sorry,” he muttered against the harsh Kevlar of Jason’s uniform, receiving an agitated growl above him for his efforts.

“Not this shit again,” Jason grumbled, jostling them both through the small window of Jason’s bathroom and wincing at the choked off cry from Tim. “Sorry—here just keep talking, but fucking hell, no more apologies!”

“Okay, sorry,” Tim breathed as Jason sat him up against the bathtub. He giggled a little loopily when he realised what he had said, head lolling back against the cool rim of the porcelain holding him upright. Jason was rummaging through cupboards, glancing sidelong at Tim when his giggling petered off into tired and soft breaths.

“It’s okay,” Jason said quickly, louder than necessary to keep Tim’s attention in the now. “So—uh—tell me about the night we went out. What did you and Dick do before I arrived?” He saw Tim jolt against the tub, pulling his hand away from his midsection to stare vapidly at the blood across his palm as if he wasn’t sure what he was looking at. “Tim!” he barked.

Tim turned his gaze over to Jason slowly, causing the creeping panic already clawing up Jason’s spine to rake down his throat. “We uh… We talked,” Tim slurred softly, dropping his arm down across his lap and watching Jason pull out packets of gauze and small glass bottles of liquids. “We drank.”

“Yeah? What did you talk about?” He cursed under his breath, shaking his hand out to get rid of the stuttering movements of his fingers. Grabbing a suture kit from under the sink Jason dropped to his knees amidst all the medical supplies he had chucked in Tim’s general direction. Tim watched as Jason cut the material of his vest away, mouth hanging open a little before he finally grasped what Jason had apparently said to him, his lips pulling up into a faraway smile.

“You were _fashionably late_ ,” he said in lieu of an answer like it was the funniest inside joke. Hell, maybe it was. Jason paused before he dabbed at the large gash in Tim’s midsection, trying to wipe the sluggish blood away so he could _fucking fix this_. When he looked back down he was frowning with the concentration, snatching up packets of cotton and making a bloody pile besides Tim’s thigh. “Because you’re fashionable,” Tim murmured vaguely, rolling his head back and staring up at the ceiling open-mouthed.

“I don’t know about that,” Jason snorted in spite of himself.

“Whose bathroom is this?” Tim said suddenly, twisting to look around the room as if Jason wasn’t trying to carefully stitch his midsection back together. He swore, holding the needle away from Tim and pushing his shoulder gently to settle him back.

“It’s mine, you moron,” he grunted without any of the heat.

“Oh.”

“ _Hey!_ ” was all the warning Tim got before he felt a sharp sting across his cheek, tossing his head to the side to catch Jason giving him a hard look before he lowered his head back down and continued his work. “Keep talking, you and Dick were gossiping about me being late.”

He reached up to the hot patch of his cheek, blinking slowly at the needle between Jason’s fingers before it—oh—went through his skin. “You slapped me,” Tim said stupidly.

“I did. Sorry, Babybird, but I need you awake.”

Awake… But god he was so tired… Tim continued to watch in a disconnected interest as Jason stitched a neat row into his stomach, focussing on the in-and-out and the ache of his tailbone and neck instead of the jarring spasms of his abdomen. Somewhere he knew he was hurt, the humming logical part of his brain that didn’t turn off was trying to fill him in on the events of the night that led them here but the information kept slipping between his fingers like sand. His eyes moved to Jason’s face where he was bent over, mouth moving and… apparently talking to Tim. When Jason glanced up, maybe for an answer to something he had said, Tim couldn’t help the giggle that bloomed in his chest when he said, “Don’t slap me again, I’m awake.”

Jason looked so put upon in that moment, slumping and looking at Tim as if begging some higher power to give him the strength he needed and just _one_ weekend of peace and quiet from this idiot. “Did you hear me?” he said instead, paying attention again to tying the end of the knot off and finding the bottle to wash the rest of the blood away and disinfect the wound.

“No?”

He sighed through his teeth, long and loud.

“Do you have your medication – the stuff for your spleen, or lack thereof, when you get skewered by unclean foreign objects?” Jason ventured, ducking his head to get into Tim’s line of sight with a pleading look in his eyes.

After a long pause all he got back was Tim looking at him strangely, followed by a lilting, “But I don’t have a spleen.”

Jason shot to his feet, gripping the edge of the sink behind him and cursing fiercely under his breath in an explosion of lost patience. All the while Tim looked up at him, thinking who-knows-what in his zonked out state behind those glassy blue eyes. Oh, what Jason wouldn’t give for the very compliant and amicable Tim he had drunkenly ushered home, who requested asprin and water and told Jason all sorts of strange tidbits of information without so much as being asked. He took in a long breath and counted to ten, closing his eyes momentarily now that they were out of imminent danger of Tim bleeding out on the rooftops of Gotham.

“Tim, do you have antibiotics?” he said, impressed with himself with how put-together he sounded this time around.

His eyes searched Tim’s face as he thought, mulling the question over and seeming to come to the conclusion that he knew the answer as he reached to his belt. Jason puffed out a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding, dropping to a crouch in front of Tim and swatting his hands away to take over the search. What he procured was a tiny glass bottle with a rubber cap, turning it over in his hand before holding it up for Tim to see. “This it?”

Tim nodded slowly, shoving an arm awkwardly under himself to sit up a bit before Jason got the sense to help him get properly upright. “Just—uh—you inject it,” he muttered, bending forward and listing against Jason while he struggled to pull at his costume. “My thigh, not my ass,” he muttered.

Jason couldn’t help the laugh, the fading adrenaline making him feel tired. “Noted.” He propped Tim better against himself, removing his costume slowly and dropping the bloody remnants of what he had cut off into the tub to be tomorrow’s problem. Eventually Tim was half asleep in just compression shorts and Jason figured that would do them for the night, securing a fresh pad of gauze over the drying wound and collecting Tim and the bottle of his medicine with a packaged syringe into his arms.

He padded slowly to the bedroom, Tim’s soft puffs of breath against his neck as he dozed, Jason trying his best not to jostle Tim with his legs hanging limp either side of Jason’s hips. As he approached the bed Jason awkwardly lifted his leg to kick the covers down, lowering Tim onto the open spot he had made on the mattress and dropping himself tiredly onto the edge. He breathed out a long sigh, pulling the liquid into the syringe with a practised hand and dropping the bottle on the bedside table as he turned back to his guest, sticking Tim in the thigh with nary a reaction from the boy.

Really he should get up and walk to the sofa, haul his ass down the hall just like he had the last time Tim had been here, but he couldn’t bring himself to even think of moving that kind of distance anymore tonight. His bathroom floor was still dotted with blood and discarded medical packs, and he absolutely could not bring himself to care one more moment about what a bitch blood is to get out of grout once it’s set in. Jason stood, peeling his armour off and down to his boxers, throwing on the closest shirt he’d left on the floor by the bed just that morning before rounding to climb in the other side of the bed. He slid in, making sure to stick his fingers against Tim’s pulse for a few moments to assure himself he was fine and pulled the covers up to Tim’s chin.

 _Get up_ , he begged himself. _Sleep on the couch._

**Author's Note:**

> i'm going to aim to update as often as i can, let's see how this goes and thank you for reading!
> 
> please note tags may be added, warning of violence in place for description of injury.  
> other story in the works alongside this, bear with me folks i'm aiming to get things out like ye olde days.


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